Trade Agreements and Environment in Latin America
Inspired by the work of the Secretariat for Submissions on Environmental Enforcement Matters of the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, this Article surveys other environmental submission mechanisms in Latin America, looking at similarities and differences. Beyond the criticisms made of these processes, they have value as independent international bodies to review the effective enforcement of a country’s domestic environmental laws, and provide opportunities to reach out to civil society about legitimate concerns.
Using Issue Certification Against a Defendant Class to Establish Causation in Climate Change Litigation
Efforts to hold major greenhouse gas emitters accountable for the harms caused by global climate change have been consistently frustrated at the procedural stages of litigation in U.S. federal courts. This Article explores using a combination of class action mechanisms to engage with these threshold barriers and hold carbon-major corporations responsible for climate impacts.
Federal Grazing Lands as “Conservation Lands” in the 30 by 30 Program
On January 28, 2021, President Joseph Biden issued Executive Order No. 14008 initiating the “30 by 30” program to “conserve” 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030, but to date, the Administration has yet to clarify the standards defining "conservation" lands. In September 2021, Nada Culver, the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Chris French, the deputy chief of the Forest Service’s National Forest System (NFS) confirmed at an annual Public Lands Council meeting that they believe the nation’s grazing lands “should [be] include[d]” in the 30 by 30 count.
Building Better Building Performance Standards
Policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels are increasingly turning to building performance standards (BPSs) to reduce buildings’ contributions to climate change. A key question in designing BPSs is what “metric” the standards should use to gauge a building’s performance. This Comment provides general background information on the case for regulating energy use in buildings, reviews the two general categories of metrics in existing BPSs and explains why an energy efficiency-based standard is superior to a greenhouse gas-based standard, and highlights the findings fr
Year One Review of the Biden Administration
Following a turbulent transition and in the midst of a global pandemic, Joseph R. Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States on January 20, 2021. In its first year, the Biden Administration prioritized climate and environmental justice initiatives through executive actions, legislation—including the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—and international agreement at the 2021 Conference of the Parties in Glasgow.
Ohio v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
A district court dismissed as moot a challenge to EPA's and the Army Corps of Engineers' 2015 Clean Water Rule interpreting the phrase "waters of the United States." Ohio and Tennessee argued the 2015 rule improperly expanded the definition of "waters of the United States," giving the agencies the p...
California Chamber of Commerce v. Council for Education and Research on Toxics
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court order granting a nonprofit business group's motion to preliminarily enjoin California's attorney general from filing or prosecuting new lawsuits to enforce the state's Proposition 65 warning requirement for cancer as applied to acrylamide in food and bever...
Louisiana v. Biden
The Fifth Circuit granted the Biden Administration's motion to stay a district court ruling enjoining federal agencies from implementing interim estimates on the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions. States had argued the president lacked authority to promulgate and enforce the estimates; that th...